


Kids from Yesterday

by WanderingCreep



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: But only for a bit, Does anyone even like this pairing?, Korse/Gerard, M/M, Origin Story, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:24:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3577770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingCreep/pseuds/WanderingCreep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You only hear the music when your heart begins to break<br/>We are the kids from yesterday...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wishful Thinking

**Author's Note:**

> Featuring no one's favorite pairing. Just a little scribble I wrote when I was supposed to be taking lecture notes.

Kids from Yesterday

 

Before, his name had been as silent and shy as he was. Before, there had never been a more well-known mop of red hair that had ever graced the desert and terrorized the City, only slate black worn short and neat to the best of a sleepy college student’s ability. Before, his name had been uttered only ever in love or fond familiarity from friends, teachers, his brother, and _him._

 

Before, his name had been Gerard.

 

A Battery citizen a little more than a zombie was rare. They’d been brought up from birth to be shut down like droids and let the city’s ways take over. A city of hosts under the council of parasites.

Gerard was a special creature who flew under the radar. He didn’t mesh well in the grand scheme of things; his creativity and genuine sparkle in his eyes just wouldn’t let him. His nature, just the way he was born, was immunity enough, repelled the city’s ways like a plague. But before it caught the eye of the desert, before it all fit into perfect(ly lethal) place around him, it caught the eye of one man in particular.

He never gave a full name, not like Gerard had when they’d first met under the neon glow of a street facing takoyaki joint.

Gerard had been standing in line for a while now, one hand stuffed into his jacket and the other keeping a death grip on the bright red umbrella doing its best to keep him dry. He felt like he’d just rolled out of bed, looked even more so, though in reality, the grogginess stuffing his head like cotton and the sore stiffness like cement in his body came from an all-nighter turned twenty-four hour guest to get his portfolio together before the graphic design 101 course he would be taking started in a month. He’d be entering college as a freshman and was too excited to be grimacing about the late nights and constant coffee runs.

The sleepyheaded look was what got to the man on the sidewalk in the first place, only followed by the way he tucked wayward tufts of hair behind his ears in a futile attempt as each bit almost immediately fell back into his eyes again. Gerard hadn’t noticed the man under the clear umbrella yet, barely spared him a glance when he sidled up next to him.

Of course, neither did anyone else. He wasn’t much too much to look at, even less to respect as far as they were concerned (give it a year or so, and they’d all see), though when he decided to make himself known, Gerard turned and listened as though he’d been greeted by a friends and not an ague pale stranger who’d been watching him for the past five minutes.

“Have you eaten here before?”

Gerard paused, stared at the man in groggy confusion, though the clear, bright light in his eyes remained, and then smiled a small smilethat showed a little teeth. He nodded his head and a few blacks strands swayed back into his vision. “Yeah. I come here with my brother all the time. The takoyaki’s the best.”

He frowned momentarily, nodding his head to one side to rid himself of the hair curling into his eyes, and froze when the man reached up and brushed it away for him, even replacing it behind his ear. By the time he’d retracted his hand, both he and Gerard were a brilliant shade of pink, so warm they might’ve been able to give off steam in the downpour pattering over their heads.

_Shit-he'd made it awkward!_  


The pale man scrambled for words, trying to explain why he’d just reached out and basically stroked the cheek of a complete stranger, and seriously hoping that he wouldn’t run away or, maybe that he did so that he could combust from his own awkwardness and embarrassment by himself.

“I watched you brushing your hair back a lot; I thought I would help because you’ve been messing with it for five minutes-“

What the actual fuck.

There was no filter. What was happening to him? Why was he so sweaty and awkward all of a sudden? He was so stoic and professional at work, had to be if he wanted to reach administrator rank by the time he was thirty, but here he was, telling this (attractive) stranger that he’d basically been stalking him the entire time he’d been standing there like a creep.

Like, seriously.

What the fuck.

Gerard stares at him for a silent few moments and the pale man feels like walking into a wall or banging his head on the takoyaki counter until he loses consciousness. He’s ruined it.

And then the sun comes out. Its bright and wide and welcome reprieve from the rain, but no one lowers their umbrellas. It’s still raining where they stand. The sun is only shining for the pale man and its coming from Gerard’s smile.

His smile. At him.

Not a nervous grin- _ahaha, you creep-_ a real one. And it’s glorious. “Yeah. I didn’t really brush it today. I was just going to run in and out,” Gerard says sheepishly.

“It’s fine, really. It’s pretty.”

Gerard smiles his thanks and the person in front of him leaves with their order. It’s Gerard’s turn. When he’s finished-takoyaki and a can of fruit soda-he waits off to the side for the pale man. “I want to see your face when you try them,” he says cheerily. He explains that takoyaki is a crispy dough ball of octopus drizzled in ponzu sauce-soy and citrus vinegar-he laughs at the pale man’s face when it scrunches at the mention of octopus. When their orders are called Gerard and the pale man try to maneuver a way to eat with their umbrellas over their heads. Since Gerard was the one to suggest them, he hands off his umbrella to him and pokes one of the takoyaki with the neon pink plastic spoon that came with the dish.

“I promise they’re good,” he tells the man holding both of their umbrellas over them. He’s poised to pop the baked octopus into the man’s mouth, looking hopeful and a dash shy. The man nods.

“I trust you.”

So Gerard feeds him the takoyaki, cautiously cupping a hand under the man’s chin in case the treat fell from the fork. Maybe it’s the fact that some beautiful stranger is this close to him, feeding him like a love-struck couple in the rain, but this baked octopus tastes like the fruit of the gods. The man nods while he chews, earning a full smile from Gerard, even a very pleased laugh and that’s when he realizes that Gerard being there has made it all the sweeter.

“I feel like since we’ve shared thus bonding moment, I should introduce myself,” Gerard says. “I’m Gerard. Gerard Way.”

Gerard. Nice name. The man experiments with it, the way it hums in his chest.

“Gerard,” he says. He nods. Definitely nice. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“And what’ll I call you?”

Well, it wasn’t exactly public, but it isn’t confidential. He can’t drop the clinical nature of it to save his life, the harsh military gruffness he’s become accustomed to, but he manages to at least soften it for this one moment.

“Korse,” he says. “Call me Korse.”

 

 

 

Before, his name had been barked by higher ranking officers and whispered amongst his peers. It hadn’t quite gained the bloody notoriety that it had now from carving the city’s ways into the flesh of motorbabies and zonerats. Before, he’d only been a soldier, a step away from Draculoid an one towards commander, though the steps away from simple grunt seemed smaller and smaller every day that he wasn’t administrator status. Before, his name had been Korse, though the years harsh weathering of his bullet-riddled innocence had worn it away into something much less humane.

He eventually worked up the courage to tell Gerard the truth, to give his sexuality room to breathe. Gerard accepted it with a nod and open arms, and when it came time for Korse to ask for a chance to be his, he hadn’t hesitated.

The first time they’re together, they find themselves in an open –air market in the arts district of the city. Korse doesn’t really care for it, but he goes along for Gerard and is reduced to a grinning moron as he watches the younger of the pair dart from table to table taking in the pieces for sale and on display with the brightest smile he’s ever seen. A woman is selling woven bracelets in jade green and red and blue. Gerard buys two and gives one to Korse, slips it onto his wrist and grins when he points out that they match.

They’re fifth time together, they-of course-eat takoyaki at the same street shop from before-not quite as commemoration, but Korse had wanted to taste the same sweetness intensified from the very first time they’d met-and spent the hours catching up with each other’s lives. Korse told Gerard everything he could afford about his line of work, how badly he wanted to the administrator.

“I’m going to change the desert and this city for the better, I know it. I just need a chance to get my foot in the door,” he said.

Gerard believed him.

He believed him and loved him and bickered with him, became his world outside of his quest upwards through the ranks and introduced him to new things in life and happiness and sorrow and being in love.

And then he was gone.

Just like that.

 

 

They’d brought in wayward refugees. Half-dead, dehydrated and starving, prime for city brainwashing to be forced down their throats. It had been broadcasted on television that night after Korse had been debriefed and allowed home, where he holds Gerard close on the couch and hears him whisper, “What are they going to do with them?”

Gerard didn’t know. No one ever told him, no citizen was ever meant to truly know. Korse fucked up. He had been excited about the capture- it was the zonerat capture that would make the decision for his future as commander or Drac. Still high on pride and adrenaline, he told him.

Terrible things, love. They pick apart the brain without even opening the skull and cram it to bursting with white and compliance and fear. Damage them and paint them to look fine. Torture was an option, resistance the great instigator. Better to just take the steel-wool scrubbing of your brain than the tease of death on the edge of a sterile, stainless steel scalpel, only to stay alive for the whole hellish ride. Destroy the beautiful to make it perfect, love.

Gerard had never heard that before. He’d gone to bed claiming dizziness and as he watched him go, Korse worried he’d overwhelmed him. He didn’t see Gerard questioning all the instances he’d been called beautiful by the very same man who sought to destroy it, or Gerard looking terrified and small under the blankets with clear eyes that said it all: he knew.

He only wished he’d seen it sooner.

 

 

 

 

 Gerard is presumed missing persons and dead. There is no trace of him. Not one.

The apartment door was left open, slightly ajar, and looks on the inside like someone has gone through it and taken all of the valuables. The TV is gone. The coffee table on the rug is pushed back like someone’s leg caught on it while they were running away. The paintings in Gerard’s room are gone. It’s all too rushed and slightly…chaotic, and that, with the absence of Gerard’s furniture and valuables tells Korse that it was unintentional. Worry eats at him as he searches the apartment. He searches for a note, a phone, anything that might tell him that Gerard was okay and had only stepped out for-

 

_three days_

-and would be back soon; he was just in a hurry and left the door open and some punk neighbors came and ransacked the place.

He isn’t dead.

Korse has been on missions within the city to respond to cases of desert refugees sneaking back into housing units within city limits and raiding them for supplies. When cornered by the unit’s owners, they’d been known to kill.

 

Gerard isn’t dead.

Korse is in denial.

And not once has it occurred to him that Mikey, the infamous other Way, who he’s only met once or twice, is nowhere to be found either.


	2. Grief

Killjoys have been spotted.

It’s them.

They go by the moniker of the Fabulous Four, Korse knows this. He’s poured over every report, every Draculoid scout recount, every mission debrief. Years ago, someone would’ve told him he was married to his work with an understanding smile and fill him with light, but that had been so long ago and he wasn’t there anymore. He was dead.

It was Korse’s fault. He hadn’t been there to protect him. He’d been headfirst in his work when Gerard had needed him most and the last thing he’d said to him had been a relay of the grisly line of work he was involved in. Not ‘I love you’, or ‘I love you so, so much’, nothing even remotely close to comforting or intimate, or even cheerful.

With nothing left, Korse had delved into his promotion work. Commander now, he’s the most feared man this side of the Zones and four unruly zonerats the he has in his current sights now. They are his only priority now.

And that redheaded scum will get the worst of it, this he will make sure of.

Korse and his dracs have stormed a little desert shindigs, one of Dr. Death Defying’s famed listening parties. The battalion of white BL/ind vehicles slide into the party, kicking up dust and sand and nearly mowing a group of killjoys down in their wake. The attendants scatter, shocks of neon colored hair amidst laser beams singing through the air, and in the scramble, while his dracs round up whoever they can catch, Korse nearly loses sight of his redhead.

He catches sight of him, like he’s just reappeared out of thin air. He skids to a stop a few feet away, searching for someone or something before he looks up and catches Korse’s eye. Korse can’t help the manic grin that stretches too wide across his face as something like confusion, recognition and fear flit across the redhead’s face when he sees him. And then hurt.

Korse doesn’t know where that came from and he doesn’t care. He’s going to murder this _creature_ and that’s all that he can focus on. Party Poison freezes up with a wounded look in his eye, clouding over with confusion again-which Korse _still_ doesn’t get-and seems to go slack. His body, taut with intent to keep running, just goes limp, which leaves enough time for Korse to raise his gun and shoot-catches him in the chest and sends him staggering back.

Poison isn’t wearing his iconic blue jacket, the Dead Pegasus jacket that has recently become his calling card of sorts in the few short months of his genuine status as a legend amongst the killjoys. Korse can see exactly where he hit him, see the dark burn against his t-shirt right over his heart.

It won’t kill him; rayguns are only lethal if the lasers come in contact from point blank range. Korse has spent hours perfecting his aim in the name of lethal and nonlethal precision, and this time he nails it. Poison hits the ground with a grunt and is still. From somewhere, Korse thinks that he can hear someone scream the redhead’s name, a familiar voice.

Korse sidles alongside the unconscious killjoy, taking his sweet time and savoring the moment. He has to admit, this is almost as good as actually having his bloody way with the man who ruined his life, having laid vulnerable beneath his feet and at his mercy. Oh, yeah; death is almost certain, but not yet. Vendettas have yet to be settled.

Korse kneels next to Poison, presses two fingers againsthisneck _(_ pulse _-shivers with anticipation of it coming to a screeching halt under his fingertips_ -check) and pulls down the collar of his shirt ( _blooming red where the blast made its mark)_. Still alive. He curls a finger under Poison’s chin and turns his head this way and that-

 

_-Gerard is slumped over on the coffee table, arms folded with his head resting over them, a course assignment on the surface before him. Korse looks at the clock on the wall: one in the morning. The TV is still on, broadcasting a talk show, the only noise in the apartment. Korse smiles, wonders if he should wake him up (no, he’s pretty sure that he hasn’t slept in days). He tries his best to maneuver Gerard into his arms without waking him and sets off down the hall. He puts him to bed, draws the covers over him and kisses his forehead, like he’s done so many nights before. As he leaves, he hears a sleepy “goodnight” from the room at his back, and-_

 

-closes his hand around his throat, wishing to god that he could just squeeze as hard as he can. But he’s waited far too long, suffered every day of his life since Gerard’s death and it’s about damn time he returned the favor.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s there when Poison wakes.

Standing far enough away that Poison has to turn his head against the hard white cot to see him, but close enough that he can feel the waves of hatred rolling off him and suffocating him where he lies. All that hate, directed at him. It’s unnerving to be the focal point of Korse’s fury.

He supposes he deserves it. He didn’t even leave a note. When he thinks back on that night, he knows that he was only scared. Scared to face Korse and the reality of Battery City and the Zones and life itself as the harsh truth seemed to turn his world upside down.

That fear had nothing on this one.

He has no idea what to say. He can’t move-even if he could will his body to do so, the restraints around his wrists and ankles keep him still. He has a pretty good idea of where he is, if the last words Korse ever spoke to him are anything to spur his already wild imagination.

“ _It’s rather…unconventional to say the least,”_ he said. White rooms, seemingly endless and vacuum-like that drove one stir crazy with the fear of never leaving this physical and mental hell they’d found themselves tethered into, that in reality rivaled the size of a broom closet. Soundproof from the outside and in, so only fear is filtered in as it is filtered out. This room has probably seen more bloodshed and hear more screams than an operating room, if Poison is absolutely sure of where he is, and he is certain.

He does his best to quiet his breathing when Korse begins speaking.

“Party Poison.” He says it like a curse, casting a hex on the man himself, like he’s disgusted. Poison just stares. “Curious creature. Do you know why you’re here?”

It takes a moment for Poison to respond.

“Destroy all the beautiful things,” Poison says finally, sounding small, “make them better.”

Then he laughs. A curt giggle of sorts that, despite the circumstances, that he lies vulnerable and confined to a cot at Korse’s mercy, almost sounds…fond.

“The irony is astounding,” he says. He squirms a bit against the cot, against the cuffs around his wrists, now looking up at the smooth ceiling. It smells sterile, too sterile, like a mask. Like the room is hiding something. Yeah, he definitely knows where he is.

“Why us?”

Poison looks at Korse again with sad eyes. He’s hijacked this interrogation before it really even started, or torture, or whatever this was supposed to be. “Why’d it have to be us? Why you, why me? Why is Battery City so intent on ruining everyone’s lives?”

“Battery City,” Korse interrupts suddenly, “is intent on saving lives-something that zone garbage like you wouldn’t understand.”

Poison gives a sharp, barking laugh. “Great job so far. How many killjoys have you killed in these rooms in the name of saving people’s lives?”

“I don’t expect a filthy ruffian like you to understand the value of human life, running around like animals in the desert, shooting at each other. Battery City stands as a beacon to aid the human race in survival, not squash it down like you have so done in the zones.”

“It ended up breaking us apart.”

Korse flinches. He hadn’t picked up on Poison’s insistence on using ‘us’ until now, and now it thoroughly gets under his skin. He scowls. “Stop saying that.”

“What?”

“There is no ‘us’. There is a ‘ _you’_ and a ‘ _me’_ , and by the end of this there will only be _me_.”

Poison’s eyes widen and he frowns like he’s suddenly realized something ( _what is that? Why does he look so betrayed all the time?)._

“You…you don’t remember me.”

Korse’s scowl deepens. “It’s hard to recall the face of every defective zonerat I’ve killed,” he replies, grinning easily when Poison’s eyes grow even wider. The fear has returned. He’s back in control.

“You’ll forgive me if you’re no different.”

 

 

 

Poison has begun to accept that this Korse is not his Korse-or maybe it had been all along-and that by the time he finally came to terms with Korse being an entirely different man, Korse would already have killed him.

Now that was a scary thought.

“What happened to him?”

Poison clears his throat. His voice is hoarse and scratchy and raw, and his ears are still ringing from screaming. Ugh, and everything _hurts_. Korse glances at him at the small noise, but says nothing. Poison needs to know what happened to make Korse this way. What turned him so… _mechanic_? He’d never seen him this cold and inhuman when they had been together, not even when he spoke about his work. There had always been a sparkle in his eye, like he had genuinely been trying to help the people of the zones. Now as those black eyes settled on Poison struggling for words, that was all he saw.

Dull, dead, black.

Poison tries again.

“What, um…what happened to, um…” he swallows hard, the motion kills his throat-why is he having so much trouble asking?-, “Gerard?”

Korse freezes. There’s suddenly a blaze in his eyes, though his face remains untouched, the same scowling, cold visage that Poison has come to fear, and he instantly knows that he’s made a mistake.

 

 

 

 

Poison can’t see out of his left eye. His lip is split in two places and he’s fairly certain that there’s a tooth or two loose on the right side of his mouth. He’s going to die, he knows it. He can feel his strength, his livelihood, draining away with each day-week? _Month?_ -that passes (truthfully, he has no idea how long he’s been here, he only knows it’s been longer than he’d like). He’s sore everywhere, still bleeding in others, and he can swear he feels his organs bruise each time he takes another beating from Korse. He wonders if Korse realize it too. Probably not, as he keeps giving him everything he can take and then some before he finally passes out, and Poison’s next-to-nonexistent attempts to fight back have all but become wishful thinking. He’s scared, weak, and tired. At this point, death is kind of a welcome guest. If only he would hurry the fuck up.

“Do I get any famous last words?”

Korse glares down at him. Obviously not; he doesn’t look like he wants to hear anything Poison has to say, if the pain Poison has endured is anything to go by either. But Poison- _Gerard_ \- has to get this off his chest. Being in varying levels on isolation with himself and isolation with Korse, he’s had time to think.

He’s thought about the others coming to get him, being reiterated into Battery City society, but those possibilities had been available before he could feel his organs struggling to stay alive. No one was coming to save him-or if they did, it would be too late-and going back to Battery City life was just a slower suicide. That left him with one thing leftover to spend his last breaths on; settling this vicious thing that Korse seemed to have out for him.

“I’m gonna die here, aren’t I?” It’s a rhetorical question; of course he is-he lost feeling in his legs a while ago. “It’s okay,” he continues. Man, he can barely hear himself. Is he whispering? “I forgive you.”

Wow, Korse wasn’t expecting that. He actually has the decency to look surprised for a moment before it’s gone, replaced with annoyance.

“I’ve been thinking,” Poison adds, licking his lips, “It’s this city, man. It does things to people. It’s not your fault that it got to you too. I can’t hold you to that.”

He wonders briefly why Korse hasn’t shut him up yet. His chest hurts. It’s getting hard to breathe, even harder to keep his eyes open. He won’t panic. He’s still got something to say.

“I’m sorry I left so abruptly,” he says. “I must’ve worried you sick, huh? I was scared and confused and the only thing that I knew for certain was that if what you said was true, then I just had to get out of here. Kinda selfish, I know. You probably won’t forgive me, but I just needed to let you know that I’m okay. I found some good guys to stay with y’know? We don’t eat as often as we used to in the City and they don’t make takoyaki as well as they do here, but we manage; by the way, do you still like that?”

Poison is surprised when Korse actually answers. “Like what?”

“Takoyaki.” Poison smiles weakly. “Man, I remember the first time you tried it. That was the first time we met, right? You told me my hair was pretty even though I hadn’t run a brush through it that day and probably looked like some rabid animal. It was really rainy. You were nervous and awkward and I thought, ‘wow, that’s adorable.’” Poison makes a noise that sounds like a sharp, breathy laugh, cut short by pain in his chest. “Oh, man…what happened to us?”

Korse is speechless, and for once, Poison is too. “How do you know that?” Korse demands. He’s replayed this memory in his head for so long-he knows that everything that Poison said is correct, down to every little detail. Korse panics, though he isn’t quite sure why. He can’t understand how this kid, _this_ _creature_ , this… _lookalike_ , knows all of this. Shaken and visibly fuming-Korse can’t help it, this is all too much-he takes Poison by the chin and turns his head towards him.

“Answer me; who told you-“

Poison isn’t looking at him. He isn’t looking anywhere. His hazel eyes are empty-

 

- _another nightmare, the same one as always (it doesn’t get any easier waking up in a cold sweat) has Korse sitting up in bed breathing hard and damp with perspiration. The dream is still burned into the backs of his eyelids: empty hazel eyes, bloodstained black hair, and every damn time, he is always, always too late to save him. He’s so guilty, even his dreams know it-_

 

-and Korse retracts his hand as though he’s been burned. He stares at Poison for a moment, lost in thought and desperately trying to collect his thoughts. He finally focuses on his eyes, slides them closed, though not out of respect-he just can’t take those long-gone hazel eyes anymore. His hands are shaking. He’s spooked and he knows it; this killjoy who looked so much like his lost love, who knew entirely too much, who’d mocked him every day with that face was gone with only a cryptic last few words.

Korse frowns. There’s no more now. He’s free somehow, somewhat. But there were still so many others; he couldn’t just stop with this one. He had yet to make every last one of those city runaways pay for what had happened to Gerard.

The sooner, the better.

Au revoir, and good riddance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Korse is just a vengeful lover blinded by grief. How unfortunate. Thanks for reading. :)

**Author's Note:**

> There's a second part, too. I saw a headcanon ask on Tumblr that Korse and Poison knew each other back in the city, but, like, in a romantic way. So that's where this came from. Korse is canonically gay; who knew?


End file.
